I could not touch the manitou with my magic because it was not dead. I could not touch the kabbalistic spells because that was not my gift. But Kocourek had named me death walker, and the dead obeyed me, no matter how much I tried to ignore that. And it was the power of the dead that held the golem together.

My power, the power over the dead, driven by the energy I borrowed from Adam and focused by the single word I’d used, washed through the golem. He staggered, dropped his prey, then turned toward me. He took two quick steps and brought his fist down on the cage.

I think we were both surprised when his fist bounced off. It made sense because the cage had been built with steel, silver, and magic. It had been built to hold werewolves. But I was still surprised he hadn’t killed me with a single blow.

I reached for Adam a second time, and this time he gave me . . . everything. The first time I’d tried this, he’d had no warning, and I had just taken what I could. This time he pushed power at me. I could feel his authority, built by the belief of the pack that he was the one who could keep them safe, as it settled over me. Belief is the most powerful magic of all. He gave me that, trusted me with it.

The golem was still waiting for the cage to collapse under his fist, his face not a foot from mine. His fist still on the top of the cage. I reached up and touched his clay flesh with a finger through the mesh. Then I used everything I had, everything I was, and everything Adam had given me when I repeated the word.

“Sunder.”

I felt the word hang in the air for a moment; it was like waiting for the rumble of thunder after the flash of lightning. Then the magic of that long-ago rabbi shuddered under the weight of the command. The newer spells the golem had woven himself gave way as the power of the dead tore them to shreds, leaving chaos behind.

I’m a mechanic; I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.

The golem’s clay body fell to the ground and shattered as though it had been dropped from a hundred feet onto rocks. Clay shards bounced off the mesh of my cage, mostly harmlessly. One or two got through but only one caused me any damage. And for a very long moment, the reek of the mess that Mary had made of her seethe gave way to the smell of springwater, the kind that bubbles up clear and pure from the earth. And then it was gone, and the whole place smelled of the dead.

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